Russia has increased oil production to a record level in 2013, says a governmental report.

      According to Energy Minister Alexander Novak, oil output totaled 523.2 million tonnes, 4.5 million tonnes more than in 2012.

      The figure is higher than the initial forecast of 505-510 million tonnes, he said at a meeting in the Kremlin.

      Much of the credit for the record production volume goes to tax breaks that encourage development of new fields and hard-to-recover reserves, he added.

      Among Russia’s major oil companies are LUKOIL, Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, Tatneft, Bashneft, Surgutneftegas, and others. Rosneft has become the world's leading publicly traded oil producer after it took over BP's Russian venture TNK-BP for $55 billion in March 2013. Rosneft has a vast and high-quality reserve base, with total proved hydrocarbon reserves of 22.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

      The upbeat statement comes at a time of disturbingly poor performance by the national economy.

      GDP growth dropped to a meager 1.4 percent in 2013. In June 2013, Alexey Ulyukayev replaced Andrey Belousov as Economic Development Minister, but has so far failed to kick-start the economy.

      According to the IMF, Russia’s prospects “have been dampened by a weak external environment, some acceleration of capital outflows and declining equity prices and subdued investment”.

      Industrial output has been flat, and the privatization campaign announced earlier by the Medvedev cabinet has stalled amid a bleak economic outlook and reluctance of state corporations’ management to share their revenues and power with foreign players.